Gender Research Institute at Dartmouth

What's Left of LGBT? "Stonewall" and its Discontents

Friday, April 29th (4-6pm, Filene Auditorium)

This year, we will engage the titular terms of our annual "Stonewall Lecture" by bringing five leading scholars - Lisa Duggan, Jack Halberstam, Eng-Beng Lim, Tavia Nyong'o and Sandy Soto - together to imagine how a queer collective and public voice from the left may be organized. If "Stonewall" and its many lectures on universal gay rights symptomize a certain narrowing of the political imagination and representation, what are their alternatives? To contextualize this debate, students are encouraged to explore the visual and whitewashing legacies of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion. This includes the Hollywood film, Stonewall, directed by Roland Emmerich in 2015, which will be screened the evening before the lecture, Thurs, 28 Apr (time/location TBA). Pushing beyond "Stonewall," the panelists will tackle a broad range of pressing questions and issues in the field of queer studies with wide implications outside the dominant, liberal landscape of urban, middle-class LGBT identities and individuals. Come find out how queers can intervene in the public discourse on sexuality and other cognate issues through word art, e-publishing and opinion fora such as the Bullybloggers for which the panelists write. There will be ample time for Q&A.

Lisa Duggan, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University and President of the American Studies Association during 2014-15 is author of The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy (Beacon, 2004) and Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Sensationalism and American Modernity (2000). She is also co-author of Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture (Routledge, 10th Anniversary Edition, 2006), and co-editor of A New Queer Agenda (2012).

Jack Halberstam, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Gender Studies, Comparative Literature, and English, University of Southern California. Author of Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (Beacon, 2013), The Queer Art of Failure (Duke, 2011) and Female Masculinity (Duke, 1998)

Tavia Nyong'o, Associate Professor of Performance Studies at New York University and Visiting Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at Yale University; editor of Social Text; author of The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (Minnesota, 2009)

Sandra K. Soto, Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts, Visiting Professor, Department of American Studies, University of Minnesota; Associate Professor Women's and Gender Studies, University of Arizona; editor of Feminist Formations; and author of Reading Chican@ Like a Queer: The De-Mastery of Desire (2010)